Fairbanks to X,Y,Z and then hunt..

[Panhandler80]

I've been reading quite a few threads where folks they flew with so-and-so out of Fairbanks. Often times the referenced taxi doesn't appear to have a base of operations in Fairbanks. Are these taxis picking up customers in Fairbanks, taking to bush village and THEN to the field. Or... Are they taking folks straight to field from Fairbanks?

If it's the former and involves a DIFFERNT plane then I get it. If folks are being flown and dropped in those same areas, then it seems like getting dropped straight from Fairbanks would make more sense.

Obviously distance and bearing of second leg (in the case of plain change for drop), have a lot to do with it. I'd hate to fly out of Fairbanks a distance of 2x and wind up backtracking to hunt 1x. If that makes sense.

 

[Kevin Dill]

Some pilots or small operations employ another carrier (with a bigger plane) to ferry a group of hunters to a secondary airstrip. It could be in a small village (Central, Circle, Ft Yukon) or a town like Delta Junction, Nenana, Tok ,etc. In some cases the secondary airstrip may be something off-grid and located within Super Cub range of multiple hunting drops. The bigger plane drops 6 hunters. The Cub flies them on to moose camp.

An example would be a Fairbanks hunter boarding a hopper flight to Bettles. The pilot flies them from Bettles to moose camp. The pilot may well tell people "Sure, we fly hunters out of Fairbanks for moose. We do it all the time". They just don't tell you all the details.

There really is no established 'normal' pattern, as all transporters are individuals and have their own ways of setting up flights. Some of it may look illogical to a hunter, but the pilot sees the bigger picture. I have spent almost 3 hours in a pickup truck just getting to or from a village airstrip. The next time, we'll fly straight from town. It all depends on the pilot and they often don't do things the same way year after year.

 

[VernAK]

FUEL! ........Fuel plays a role in this equation also. To expect a Cub to fly from FBX to a tiny remote strip ahead of the herd is difficult if not impossible. Multiply by the number of hunters and a gear load plus meat trips and a couple days of bad weather and mechanical issues. That's a hell of a lot of expensive flying!

Many of the better operators will transport from a town in a larger aircraft [206 etc] to a common remote strip or sandbar and then use a Cub to insert hunters a short distance to the more rugged strip where you can be ALONE.